Site Mobile Navigation

As Season Ends, B.C.S. Retooling Begins

Ryan Baker (22) of Louisiana State breaking up a pass intended for Alabama's Darius Hanks on Monday night in the first half of the B.C.S. title game in New Orleans.Credit
Chris Graythen/Getty Images

NEW ORLEANS — College football’s postseason is poised to undergo significant change. B.C.S. officials will meet Tuesday for the first of several discussions on altering the sport’s postseason. Interviews with conference commissioners, athletic directors and television industry officials revealed that change to the current structure of college football’s postseason was imminent.

“I think there will be some change,” Bill Hancock, the executive director of the Bowl Championship Series, said. “Now will it be seismic? No one knows.”

To appreciate just how varied the attitudes are about one possible change, a four-team playoff, consider that just four years ago, the sport’s power brokers barely discussed the idea when it was raised at the B.C.S. meetings.

Mike Slive, the Southeastern Conference commissioner, and John Swofford, the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, supported the idea of a so-called plus-one model then. It barely generated any conversation, never mind a vote. The idea was so toxic that it was called a plus-one, in part, to avoid using the term “playoff,” which wrinkled the bow ties of many college presidents.

“I would have thought there would have been more support and open-mindedness,” Swofford said in a telephone interview. “Its time had just not come. Whether that time has come at this point, I don’t know. I do think there’s a lot more open-mindedness about potential change, be it minimal or significant.”

An N.F.L.-style playoff of 8 or 16 teams is not coming. Nor is a reversion to the bowl system before the creation of an annual title game. The changes will fall somewhere in the middle, and will not be put into effect for two more seasons because of the existing television contract.

It is also important to remember that the Rose Bowl remains a huge factor in the postseason, as Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, and Larry Scott, his Pacific-12 counterpart, have declared their leagues’ relationship to that game essentially to be sacred. There are so many factors to consider — TV money, university presidents, bowl relationships, title sponsorships, academic concerns, health concerns, travel dollars, the egos of conference commissioners, and tradition — that few involved are guessing at what the outcome will be.

“Everyone knows that the winds of change are blowing through college football’s postseason,” said Robert Shelton, the executive director of the Fiesta Bowl.

Hancock equated this week’s meeting to the start of the second quarter of a football game. There will be 40 to 50 ideas and models discussed, and many will be eliminated.

The idea of a four-team playoff — a Final Four of football — is considered by many a viable option, and perhaps the most realistic one. Generally speaking, there are three other possibilities: tweak the current B.C.S. formula; eliminate the entire B.C.S. except for a No. 1 versus No. 2 game; play the bowl games as they currently exist and reseed everyone after those games for a championship game between the No. 1 and No. 2 team.

Tuesday’s meeting is important because it will be the first time that the 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, will be in the same room to discuss options.

There are two years left on the current ESPN contract with the B.C.S., which is worth about $125 million a year. That number could double if a four-team playoff is created. At its essence, the B.C.S. is a conglomeration of conferences linked through a TV deal. ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window opens later this year; it could be moved up to the summer when the commissioners decide what they want.

Coming to a consensus among the power conferences is not easy, considering the differences in geography, tradition and finances. The commissioners will be dedicating much of their time to this issue in the next six months because their decision must essentially be unanimous.

Photo

Fans awaiting the start of the B.C.S. title game Monday night between No. 1 Louisiana State and No. 2 Alabama in New Orleans.Credit
Matt Sullivan/Reuters

“I think it’s premature to get too focused on any one route this will take, but I do get the sense that there’s more openness to potential significant adjustments than there had been in the past,” Swofford, of the A.C.C., said.

In the wake of the perception that ESPN had a strong role in conference realignment, network executives are worried about how their role in a potential postseason change could be viewed. A playoff would drive up the value of the postseason programming exponentially, although it would probably devalue other bowl games.

“We have nothing to do with the format and no influence over the decisions that get made there, but I sense that the people who run college football and the conferences are not tone-deaf,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN’s senior vice president for college sports programming, alluding to the unhappiness among college football fans with the B.C.S.

Magnus said that a critical part of the next bid for the B.C.S. rights would be an extension of the length of the contract to eight years from four. He emphasized that ESPN, with its large investment in televising college games, still valued the regular season. But he added about the postseason: “Can it be better? It absolutely can be better.”

Scott joked that when he was hired, he got in a little hot water from the Pac-12 university presidents for saying he was “open-minded” to discussing a playoff.

“I have remained open-minded despite that,” Scott said with a laugh in reference to the initial reaction. “And I will certainly go into these discussions with an open mind.”

Delany and Scott could be reading from the same script when they talk about the importance of the Rose Bowl and the regular season. Delany and the Big Ten presidents have historically resisted any move toward a playoff. Delany said he would have a better feel for what his league’s stance would be in mid-January, after he consulted with the conference’s university presidents.

Delany said that so much time was dedicated to the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State in the last meeting of Big Ten presidents that he did not have a clear idea of what they thought about changing the postseason. He did, however, echo previous concerns.

“There’s a real concern about a slippery slope and what a playoff means to college football,” Delany said.

Slive, of the SEC, has openly lobbied for some sort of an evolution to a playoff or plus-one model for years, and some in the sport say it could be an integral part of his legacy. It is no secret that Slive and Delany are rivals, which could make for some fascinating dynamics as these issues are hashed out in the coming months.

Exactly where Scott and the Pac-12 stood on the eve of these B.C.S. meetings was also unclear.

“The relationship between the Pac-12 and Big Ten transcends a playoff system unless they can buy into the playoff and the Rose Bowl is protected,” said Neal Pilson, a television consultant and a former president of CBS Sports.

The role that the Big East will play is intriguing, as its automatic qualifier status — if that distinction will still exist — is in question.

“I think it would be hard to exclude us from whatever the system is,” Nick Carparelli Jr., the senior associate commissioner of the Big East said. “I think it would create more pressure on the system.”

The logistics of a potential four-team playoff are muddled. Would the bowl system be used? Would cities like Dallas, Miami and Indianapolis bid for the semifinal and final games, reminiscent of the Super Bowl? Would bowls like the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta remain elite games, which they are now because of their inclusion in the B.C.S.?

There are countless questions to be answered, and that slow process starts Tuesday and will play out over the next several months. As the fans leave here after the title game, the decisions that will determine the future of the sport will begin to be made.

A version of this news analysis appears in print on January 10, 2012, on page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: As Season Ends, B.C.S. Retooling Begins. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe